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Professional Poker Player-Personal Narrative

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As I walked into the smoke filled room, a steady mixture of anxiousness and excitement ran through my body at a vividly momentous pace. It is not every day an 18 year old kid is able to go to the nearest casino and go play poker. My family was visiting my grandparents in Oklahoma, and as luck would have it, the legal gambling age in Oklahoma is 18 years. I have been playing poker steadily throughout the course of my life to this point at small home games and online tournaments, and prior to this day the only aspirations I had in my body was to become a well known professional poker player. But nothing would equal the thrill of taking down a monster pot in an actual casino, or so I thought. About fifteen minutes after signing up for a seat …show more content…

I walked into poker room, and sat down in fourth position. I was greeted by a mix of intimidating scares, and a few attempts at small talk. An hour flew by and I was up a considerable amount. The only thought that kept rolling through my head was how badly I was going to run over this table if I was able to catch a decent run of cards. Then my moment came. It was my big blind and action passed throughout the table. After a raise and a re-raise, I had already decided I was most likely folding, due to the tight nature of most of the players at the table, and even more considerably the players that were still in the hand. I peeked at the first card and stared at the prettiest card in the deck, the ace of spades. My heart jumped a little bit, but I still realized that I was probably going to fold if the second card was considerably worse than an ace. I squeezed and peeked at my second card and I felt the overbearing urge to jump on the table and praise god at that very instant. The second card was also an ace, and I found myself with the holy grail of poker hands. Bullets, rockets, how sweet it was. Every ounce of my poker career to this point had led me to this …show more content…

If you've ever been into poker or even watched the World Series of Poker on ESPN, you'll see what I mean. Here are just a few observations I've made...some obvious, some (hopefully) not. Mind games are a big part of the game. In poker, you can learn all about the strength of hands, pot odds, betting position, and how to play it by the book. In Street Fighter 4, you can analyze frame data, learn combos, find rankings/tier listings, and watch replays. But in the end, it comes down to playing the man. It's about making the other guy fold when he has you beat, or giving him a false sense of confidence when really, he's walking into certain defeat. It's about giving your opponent the impression that his strategy is full-proof, only to punish him painfully at the most (in)opportune time. It's all about being unpredictable and rattling the other guy to the point where all his pre-game knowledge seems to go out the window. Heck, Justin Wong almost beat Daigo while playing a character he admittedly didn't know very well or practice much. I doubt he was thinking about frame data while he was missing combos, but still giving Daigo all he could handle. The head knowledge definitely comes in handy, don't get me wrong. I'm just saying it's about how you actually use what you know. Luck is required to make it through. Back in the day before poker got huge-which I

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